Periodic Puppy Pics

Just so you don't think ill of me, I did indeed take pictures of Callie during our last sunny day walk last weekend. Here she is hamming it up among the vines.

Callie among the vines.

She's really into moving sticks and twigs around the vineyard. They just seem to need to be moved. It's great having a working dog. I need to learn how to channel that desire to work into something constructive, like : bring me my slippers (without chewing them to shreds). I'll work on that...

On Thursday I actually left the house for a few hours. I went into "town" and got a haircut. Then I drove over to Bléré (on the other side of Chenonceau from us) to search for several necessary items. Among them : dog treats, sticky anti-weevil glue for the hazelnut trees, tomato paste, coffee, beef for bourguignon, a bottle of vieux marc, and a few other mundane things. I was less successful than I wanted to be, but I got what we needed.

Instead of vieux marc, we will drink calvados on Ken's birthday. Marc is a specialty of Burgundy; it's the liquor distilled from the leavings of grape skins and seeds after the juice is pressed for wine. Since we don't live in Burgundy, it's hard to find. But we like it, so I tried.

I didn't buy the weevil glue because it was too expensive at the garden shops I went to. There are a few more stores that I can check out in the area. I think I need to go somewhere that caters more to agriculturalists than to home gardeners.

The store was out of the coffee we like, so we will get it at the store closer to us next week. No big deal.

Can you believe that February is over?

That Certain Air Of Savoir Faire

This may not be the Merry Old Land of Oz, but watching the vine pruning process makes me realize that these people know a lot more about vines than those of us who simply drink the juice of their labors.

Another pine cone.

There's a couple, a man and a woman, who work for the people that own most of the vineyards behind our house. In fact, we don't know if they're actually a "couple" or whether they just work together. We always wave, exchange bonjours, and sometimes talk about the weather. They try to get Callie to come close to them, but she just runs around them.

Other-worldly lichens on a red brick.

The couple are out there nearly every day this time of year. They prune the thousands of vines back to one or two canes, one at a time, by hand, over the course of winter. They work in the cold rain; they work in the warm sunshine. They line the clippings up between the rows and will eventually use a tractor to pull a mulcher that grinds them up. Other pruners in neighboring vineyards burn the clippings as they go.

A broken tile, MADE IN FR...

Little by little the scraggly vineyard transforms into neat, clean rows. Some of the vines are pruned to a single long cane, others down to two or three short stubs. I have no idea why some vines are done one way while the others are different. In a few weeks the job will be done. Shortly after that we will start to see a slight green tint edge out the drab brown of the winter vineyard as the leaves emerge on the vines. Then we'll know that spring is really here.

Pruned and ready for leaves.

"We get up at twelve and start to work at one, take an hour for lunch and then at two we're done. Jolly good fun!"

Weekend Sunshine

Saturday afternoon proved to be another (relatively) warm one. Sunday was even nicer. We had just over 16ºC, about 60ºF, and that's the warmest we've had all season. It's likely to get cold again, but we're enjoying the sun and dry weather for the time being.

One of our neighbors burned some yard waste Saturday afternoon.

It was my afternoon to take Callie out. I've been trying to make her wait until after 5:30 to take advantage of the lengthening days. We can't go out between 4:00 and 5:30 because Lily and her human are out there and we don't like getting tangled up with them.

These buds remind me of pussy willows.

It was so nice at the height of the afternoon on Saturday, though, that we went at 3:00. It was terrific! No Lily, in fact, there was nobody but us out there. I can't wait for spring.

A single hanging pine cone.

While walking, we saw (and heard) a couple pairs of hawks "making lazy circles in the sky" above our heads. I assumed they were hunting for mice and other critters in the vineyard, but I never saw one of them swoop down.

This is as close as I could get to the gliding hawk with my zoom lens.

I wonder if they were courting or something. Or they were just out enjoying the warm sunny day like I was.

**Weather update: It's raining on Monday morning.

More From The Back Yard

This is one of the braces (brackets?) on the shutters that cover the window in the garden shed out back. The shutters and the window are in need of some maintenance, but their state of disrepair gives them a bit of character.

They work just fine, so there's no urgency to fixing them up. They stand open most of the year, unless we're expecting a storm and I remember to go out and close them, and they stay closed through the winter.

Here's a photo of the shed itself from back in 2005 - springtime. Pretty soon the yard will look like this again!

Spring 2005.

When we moved here in 2003, the shed had no door. It was boarded shut, and when I finally pried the wood away I found a treasure trove of junk. The shed was chock full of stuff - wood, boards, stakes, flower pots, concrete blocks, old rusty tools, bottles of insecticides and fertilizers, and more.

It took me several days to empty it all out, sort through it, and several trips to the dump to dispose of most of it. I never finished with the disposal and some of the junk is still sitting outside the shed under a tarp. Maybe this year.

Now the shed is home to the lawnmower, the rototiller, the weed whacker, wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes, flower pots, stakes, etc. Much of the same crap that was there before. It's just newer, more organized crap.

We also had a new lockable door installed on the shed a few years back.

Birthday Dog

Today is Callie's first birthday! You can tell how excited she is:

Birthday schmirthday.

Just for fun, here she is at about four weeks:

I was such a cute pup!

Compare and contrast.

Crocus

The other day I mentioned that we had crocuses in the yard. They seem to be popping up in places where we haven't noticed them before. I didn't have a photo then, but I've since gone out and taken a few.

A back yard crocus.

I don't know if the plants produce seeds that are spread by birds, or what. I do know that you typically divide the corms to propagate crocuses. But since I haven't done that with these volunteers, I have no idea how they're spreading.

Another variety of crocus in the yard.

Of course, one explanation (most likely) is that they were planted right where they are and I've just never noticed them among the primroses and cyclamen.

Ah, nature!

Lierre Grimpant

Our yard is full of these vines. I think they were planted as a ground cover beneath a big pine tree at one point, but they've migrated to different parts of the yard. And the problem we have with them is that they climb up our trees.

Lierre grimpant, or climbing English ivy, on a birch tree.

Every spring now we have to go around and try to cut them off at ground level so that they don't get too far up the tree trunks. They really get a hold on the bark of the apples and birches and they're a pain to pull off.

The French Wikipedia site notes two common names for hedera helix: herbe de saint Jean (St. John's herb) and bourreau des arbres (tree executioner). Yikes!

With a name like that second one, I'm pretty sure it would not be good to let them cover the trees, so off they must come!